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This initiative focused on stopping sellers of counterfeit trademark goods by seizing their Internet domain names, as opposed to past efforts that focused on illegal streaming or downloads. Some of the websites were selling fake Christian Louboutin shoes, Hèrmes bags and baby carriers, ICE director John Morton told reporters on a conference call.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell a legitimate site from a counterfeit site,” Morton said. “People have no idea they even went to a counterfeit site.”

This is the third year in a row that ICE has tackled online infringement by targeting sites on Cyber Monday. The initiative has been dubbed Project Cyber Monday 3 and was orchestrated by the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center.

This is the first year that IPR partnered with Europol, a counterpart agency across the Atlantic, to help European countries seize foreign-based top-level domain names such as .eu, .uk and .fr. As part of the crackdown, the domain names of 31 overseas sites were also seized — effectively shutting the sites down.

“The purpose of our effort is to confront fraud online,” Morton said. “It’s a global problem and it affects everyone when IP rights are violated.”

So far, the cyber sting has yielded one arrest. Pressed on whether the initiative would result in more arrests, Morton said the investigations are ongoing.

“The vast majority of these websites are operating overseas where we are not present,” Morton said. “We are having to fight a battle out over the Internet seizing websites whenever we can and if possible, arresting people as well.”

While ICE will continue to tackle this problem, Morton advises consumers to exercise some common sense.

“If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is,” Morton said. "Trust your instincts. … it’s probably your best line of defense.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:05 p.m. on November 26, 2012.